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My Secret Hacks for Saving Money at Dollar General

Smoky Chipotle Chicken in the crockpot

Gretchen’s $55 Grocery Shopping Trip and Weekly Menu Plan

My Secret Hacks for Saving Money at Dollar General

The following reader tip is from Heidi of Heidi Naturally

I've found a way to save money with this Dollar General hack so we never have to pay full price again. We actually save 20% every time we buy toilet paper and other necessary items!

Extreme couponing used to be more popular, but even on my best couponing days I rarely saved much on paper products. Now I've found a way to not have to clip coupons or spend a lot of time planning my 20% off haul.

Here's how we do it.

Dollar General Hack Step by Step:

1. Get the Dollar General app on your phone and click on "Digital Coupons" OR go to your local Dollar General store and spend at least $5.

This should print a $5 off $25 coupon on your receipt for you to use on the next Saturday. Our local store has been offering this every week for a couple of years, but I'm not sure what the policy is in your area. It's worth checking out and using the system I am going to outline for you.

2. Go to the store on the designated date (with your printed or digital coupon) and choose whatever you need in the store.

I like to get this as close to $25 on the dot for the best savings.

3. Use any manufacturer or digital Dollar General coupons as well.

The app is very easy to navigate. You just click on "Digital Coupons" and click on the "+" sign next to any product coupons you might want to use. These coupons come off your purchase when you log in on the keypad at checkout.

If you don't use the coupon it's no big deal, so choose any and all coupons you think you might use so they are ready for you.

4. Remember that any coupons or sales come off first.

The $5 off $25 coupon won't register if coupons take you below the $25 threshold. So make sure you figure out your total BEFORE you get to the checkout lane.

Or just have an extra item on hand to buy if you happen to figure wrong or don't want to have to calculate your total.

This is such a great deal because you could actually buy an item on sale, use a manufacturer coupon, and still be able to qualify this product in the $5 off $25 deal. This works for clearance items too!

5. Choose any products in the store.

The best thing about this Dollar General hack is that it can be used for almost anything they sell. You can use this coupon for toilet paper, clearance items, produce, groceries, paper towels, tissues, laundry products, personal care products, towels, candy, gifts, and more.

All products in the store except gift cards, phone cards, pre-paid financial cards, prepaid wireless handsets, Rug Doctor rentals, propane, e-cigarettes, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages are eligible for these savings!

More Savings Tips

At our store, when I pay for these products, a new $5 off $25 store coupon prints on my receipt almost every time!!

So I technically don't have to go back into the store again until the next Friday or Saturday when I can use my big coupon again.

Obviously, the key to the greatest savings is to stay as close to the $25 purchase as possible, but even if you spend $30, that's still a 17% savings with this coupon.

I hope this post helps you see all the saving possibilities you can take advantage of at your local Dollar General store.

I love this store because it's small and carries just about anything that the big box stores carry in less space. I know I can be in and out of there in just a few minutes with exactly what I need!

Heidi Johnson is an author, teacher, and reader of anything healthy or time-saving. She's on a mission to help busy families make healthy choices in all aspects of life. Grab her free Healthy Living Checklist at Heidi Naturally.

Smoky Chipotle Chicken in the crockpot

(A sample of one of the Eat at Home menu-planning service grocery lists. I love how organized & time-saving these are!)

Are you joining me for the Eat at Home Challenge! I’m thrilled to have SO many of you participating this time around!

For those who missed my earlier posts on this challenge, here are the details:

I’ll be on Facebook Live every weekday morning this week around 9 a.m. prepping our dinner for that evening. If you want to join us live, I’d love to have you do so!
Every day at 2 p.m., I’ll send out an email with the video for that day’s recipe, the recipe I made, plus some menu-planning tips and money-saving suggestions. There will be a lot of things that I’ll only be sharing in the email (I won’t be posting them here), so if you don’t want to miss out, be sure to sign up to get my emails here.
You can also interact on the Facebook Group every day and share what you are making for dinner, if you’d like!
I’ll be using the Eat at Home Menu Plans for this week’s menu plan. I love these menu plans because you get 4 different meal plans in two different sizes and you get a color-coded grocery list. Plus, they are on sale for as low as $1.13 per week. (I’ll share more details in the coming days!)

I shared my menu plan for this week and the grocery list in the email I sent out to the Eat at Home email list. (Not on that list? Sign up here.)

Last Night’s Dinner:

For those of you who asked, we all liked the Pesto Chicken from yesterday. I thought it was a little bland, but my family gobbled it up — in fact, I didn’t get a photo of it because it was almost all gone before I thought to take a picture of it!!

What I Made Today:

Today’s recipe was pretty simple, but I have to admit, I was a little scared about cutting up a chipotle pepper on live video. I was heading to my discipleship group right afterwards and I was so scared I was going to accidentally touch my eyes and then they’d be all burning and red for four hours.

Gratefully, someone on the live video suggested I just drain the can over the chicken and use that sauce instead of actually cutting up a pepper. I think it was a brilliant idea — and it worked like a charm!

Anyway, if you want to watch me (and laugh!) on live video, here you go:

I’ll let you know tomorrow what we thought of the recipe! I think it’s going to be yummy — and it was so simple to make!

Thanks for joining me in this challenge. If you want to share what you cooked today, head over here to the Facebook Group and leave a comment and tell us!

Looking for some inspiration to eat at home more often?

I’m using the Eat at Home menu-planning service for my recipes for this challenge. I love this menu-planning service and highly recommend it — especially if you struggle to come up with the time and inspiration to make your own menus.

Eat at Home is a menu-planning service designed to make getting dinner on the table much easier every night. It was a service created by Tiffany, a mom of 4 who loves to cook and loves to gather her family around the table, but has found that if she doesn't have a quick and easy plan, it's hard to make that happen.

How Does the Eat at Home Menu-Planning Service Work?

The Eat at Home menu-planning service is an incredible way to help you save time and save money. You don't have to worry about planning menus OR grocery list, because Tiffany does all of that for you as part of the menu-planning service.

She has designed it specifically with busy families in mind and the menu plans offer:

Quick to fix meals (even as fast as 15 minutes to the table!)
Lots of slow cooker recipes
Done-for-you Weekly Meal Plans & Grocery Lists

The recipes can all be fixed quickly, with only a few minutes of hands-on prep. Because the recipes use common pantry ingredients, it's likely that you have everything you need to make many of the recipes.

It's so convenient because all the work is done for you! You just choose which menu plan you'll use, print the grocery list, go shopping, and then spend a few minutes prepping food each day and dinner is D-O-N-E!

When you sign up for the plan (it's just a few dollars per week — or less!), each month, you'll get:

An entire money of No Flour, No Sugar menu plans, including weekly grocery lists and printable recipe instructions
An entire month of Traditional Menu Plans, including weekly grocery lists and printable recipe instructions
An entire month of Slow Cooker Menu Plans, including weekly grocery lists and printable recipe instructions (this is my favorite!)
An entire month of Whole Food Menu Plans, including weekly grocery lists and printable recipe instructions
Each menu plan comes with recipes created for small family (3-4 servings) and large family (6-8 servings)
Color-coded grocery lists make it easy to swap out ingredients or whole meals
Printable Menus to hang on the fridge or near your calendar, so you can easily see what's for dinner that week and your family can too
Access to the entire month at once!
1 Hour Freezer Stash Plans – a new plan each month to stock your freezer with 6 meals in 1 hour!

You can choose to stick with just the traditional menu plan or just the slow cooker menu plan or just the whole foods menu plan or just the no flour, no sugar menu plan. Or, you can rotate different menu plans on different weeks, depending upon what you feel like cooking or how much time you have!

Get the Eat at Home Menu-Planning Service for as Low as $1.13 per Week!
If you struggle to make menu plans and would love for someone to make them for you + make a grocery list for you, it's well worth spending a few dollars every week to let Eat at Home do the work for you.
This week only, when you sign up for their plan (either the monthly plan, the quarterly plan, or the yearly plan, you can get 30% off through January 14, 2019 by using coupon code NEW at checkout!)
That makes the done-for-you menu plans and grocery lists as low as $1.13 per week. And you get access to all four plans and the freezer cooking plans for the whole month at the rate!
Go sign up for this incredible menu-planning service here!
(Oh and they have a fantastic two-week money-back guarantee if you think you want to try it out but aren't sure whether it will work for you or not!)

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links, and we will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking through our links. Read our disclosure policy here.

Gretchen’s $55 Grocery Shopping Trip and Weekly Menu Plan

Walmart
2 GoGo Squeeze Blastz – $2.94 each, used 2 $1/1 peelie coupons AND 2 $1/1 Ibotta rebates – $0.94 each after coupons and rebates
1 pkg Great Value Applesauce – $1.43
2 Kevita Drinks – $2.50 each, used $1.10/2 Ibotta rebate – $1.95 each after rebate (My newest obsession! Who else loves these drinks?!!)
1 Oui Yogurt – $1.34, used Free Ibotta rebate – Free after rebate
3.91 lbs Bananas – $1.92
1.72 lbs Apples – $1.70
Used $0.25/1 Ibotta rebate for any receipt
Total after coupons and rebates: $10.58
Aldi
4 cans Green Beans – $0.49 each
1 pkg Green Grapes – $2.33
1 pkg Frozen Chicken Breasts – $5.99
3 pkg Blueberries – $1.59 each
1 pkg Fruit & Grain Bars – $1.39
1 pkg Spinach – $1.19
1 pkg Frozen Broccoli – $1.19
1 pkg Oven Roasted Turkey Breast – $3.99
5 lbs Potatoes – $1.89
1 pint Grape Tomatoes – $1.79
2 dozen Eggs – $0.58 each
1 bag Gala Apples – $1.49
1 pkg English Muffins – $0.99
1 Yeast Packets – $0.89
1 jar Dill Pickles – $1.29
1 loaf Bread – $1.49
1 gallon Milk – $1.49
2 Cucumbers – $1.29 each
1 Half & Half – $1.79
1 Unsweetened Applesauce – $1.89
1 can Black Beans – $0.59
1 Cantaloupe – $1.29
1 pkg Flour Tortillas – $1.19
1 pkg Flour – $1.59
Total: $44.72